Monday 21 April 2014

VDCP - Video Disk Control Protocol

With the onset of file based systems I am surprised that I have not been asked before to implement this protocol. A few years ago we added the DD35 protocol to the SR-4 for FranceTelevision to control a EVS Video Server using . We have also implemented some Odetics support. The DD35 and  Odetics protocols  are both of these are extensions to the Sony P2  protocol as is our own xmc protocol used by CBServer. VDCP uses the same RS422 format and speed but has a completely different structure.

I have modified our Sony P2 test software to include the basic VDCP command set and we can now read the file names, select clips and control the transport, the next step will be Synchronisation and Insert Record.

There are still a few commands that I am having trouble with, but the basics are there. The first software will be for the the RM-6 synchroniser, I will then add the protocol to the UR controllers.

When will we implement Ethernet protocols? The problem is that no protocol stands out as a standard. Most are in house protocols which are not published, this makes them difficult if not impossible to implement.